The last massacre of which history has record occurred in June or July of this year, when a man by the name of Koon, from Kingsbury, and three laborers, on their w^ay to Fort George, were found dead and scalped on the highway near the " Half-Way Brook." " In the fall of 1780, Major Christopher Carleton of the 29fch Regiment, with about twelve hundred men, regulars, Tories and Indians, made his historic raid through Kingsbury and Queensbury, capturing Fort Ann on the loth of October, and Fort George on the following day. At this time, all the buildings and structures in Kingsbury and Oueensbury, in the path of the raid, were destroyed by fire by the enemy, causing 1780 to go down in local annals as " the year of the great burning." In order to speedily reach Fort George, Major Carleton led

" Stone's Burgoyne, pp. 92, 343, 344. " Public Papers Gov. George Clinton, Vol. IX, pp. 421, 422. " Holden's Queensbury, p. 477.

THE HALF-WAY BROOK IN HISTORY. 1 87

his forces from Kingsbury Street directly across country, through the then existing road'" entering the Lake George highway near the " Half- Way Brook " post. Thus intimately connecting this spot once more with the stirring events of that time, Holden's History of Queensbury states that lohabod Merritt, son-in-law of Abraham Wing, the founder, and father of Joseph, the first white child born in' this town, erected the first frame house in Queensbury, on one of the sections of the Town Plot, near the *■ Half-Way Brook," which was burned at this time. Connected in a way with Che history of the " Half- Way Brook," is the battle which took place at Fort Ann July 8, 1777, between the Americans under Colonel Long and the 9th British Regiment of Burgoyne's army.